


We're Here

by liairene



Series: A Visitor's Guide to Highbury [7]
Category: Emma - Jane Austen, Persuasion - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends as Family, Gen, Modern Era, Small Towns, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24422977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liairene/pseuds/liairene
Summary: There's no way around it. Her father's funeral is the hardest day of Nora Dashwood's life. Thankfully, she has some pretty great friends to support her.
Series: A Visitor's Guide to Highbury [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/908481
Kudos: 25





	We're Here

Will Darcy wasn’t sure whose had been the first funeral he’d attended; it was probably an elderly relation. He had gone to a few of those as a child. The first funeral he had distinct memories of was his uncle’s. When he was seventeen, his uncle Louis Ferrars had died. Louis had been sick for a few years, and while his passing wasn’t unexpected it was heartbreaking. Then, six years later, he attended the most difficult funeral of his life-the joint funeral of his own parents.

* * *

For Elspeth Bennet, as with most of her Highbury-born friends, the first funeral she’d attended came in the winter of her third grade year when they attended Catherine and Leo Woodhouse’s funeral. Cate, the mother of Elsa’s good friend Emma, had been driving home from Mansfield in a blizzard with her three-year-old son when her car was hit from behind by a truck that had hit black ice. Leo had died instantly; Cate had passed away two days later in the hospital. Elsa remained convinced that it was the saddest event she’d ever attended.

* * *

Ed Ferrars had buried his father when he was seventeen and his favorite aunt and uncle when he was twenty-three. He felt like he was some sort of expert on funerals. But that feeling didn’t actually mean that going to a funeral for the father of one of his dearest friends was anything approaching easy.

* * *

Annabelle Eliot was not close to her parents. Her mother had been more interested in the family business while her father had been distant, more interested in her more fashionable older sister and his odd hobbies. But when Annie was twenty-one, her mother was arrested for embezzling from her father’s company, and Annie’s immediate family was shattered. Without a stable family base of her own, Annie had been absorbed into the much more solid families of her closest friends, Elsa Bennet and Nora Dashwood. While she was in no way close to her own father, watching Nora lose her beloved father shook Annie intensely.

* * *

As a soldier, Erik Wentworth had attended a few funerals. He’d attended funerals for each of his four grandparents throughout his childhood although he honestly didn’t remember being particularly affected by any of those except his Grandpa Wentworth, the man for whom he was named. He’d never known Jim Dashwood well, but he knew that Jim meant the world to Annie, which meant that she needed him.

* * *

“Elsa, you’ve got to help me.”

“With what?”

“This is going to sound so stupid, but I don’t know how to do my hair.”

Elsa tried not to laugh, grateful that the phone prevented Emma from seeing her face. “Em, you have a pixie-cut.”

“Do I wear a headband? Stick a bobby pin in on one side?”

“Do what you think will look best. No one is going to judge what you look like.”

“They would if I wore a red dress.”

“Are you planning to wear a red dress?”

“Elsa, I don’t think that I even own a red dress.”

“Then why did you even bring it up?”

Emma sighed. “I don’t know. I’m nervous and stressed. Dad keeps telling me that he’s going to be the next one to die and he never expected to outlive Jim Dashwood and on and on.”

“Your dad is going to live to be one hundred.”

That elicited a snort. “Don’t tell my dad. He talks like he has one foot in the grave and the other one on a banana peel.”

* * *

Christopher Brandon had been thirty-four when he buried his older brother. Lucas’s final illness had been sudden, and in an odd way he almost envied the Dashwood family the long months that they’d had to say good-bye to Jim Dashwood. But there was nothing enviable about watching a relatively young woman (Audrey Dashwood was a very spritely fifty-one.) watch her beloved husband slip away or seeing a father determined to live to see his son’s high school graduation because he wouldn’t get to see the son graduate from college.

* * *

It was a sunny day. Marianne Dashwood felt offended when she looked out the window and saw a brilliant blue sky. How could anyone be happy? Her father was dead, and the world would never be the same. How dare the sun shine on the day of her father’s funeral? She was heartbroken. Her father had died, and life would never be the same. And now the sun had the gall to shine on the hardest day of her life. Life just wasn’t fair. Her dad wouldn’t get to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. He wouldn’t be able to help her with car troubles or comfort her when she had boy troubles. And she still had dozens of questions she wanted to ask him.

* * *

“This doesn’t feel real,” John Knightley commented as he stood in his older brother’s kitchen.

George looked up from the cup of coffee he was fidgeting with. “It doesn’t.”

“I thought it might be easier for you because you’ve been here the past couple of years. You’ve seen Dr. D get sick and go downhill.”

George shook his head. “He’s been sick for about two years, but it’s only really been clear that he was going to-that this was going to happen since around Easter. But it hasn’t been easy.”

“How is Nora doing?”

“That’s a hard one. Elsa definitely knows, and Ed probably does. But you know Nora.”

“She plays it close to the vest.”

“Always has,” George replied.

“I love Alice’s theory about that.”

“That between Jack and Marianne the house was so loud when they were growing up that Nora just never talked about her feelings?”

John nodded. “It just makes sense.”

George shook his head. “It’ll be hard on her. She was always the one who was closest to Dr. D out of the four of them.”

“Marianne will make the loudest fuss, but Nora will take it the hardest.”

“It sucks. There’s really nothing else to say, but it sucks.”

* * *

“Loving husband, father, and grandfather; beloved teacher and valued friend,” Nora read to herself. It was hard to see her father reduced to these simple words. Over the past two years, cancer had taken her father from a strong vibrant man who could (and would) run a marathon and then chase his grandson around the yard to a figure who couldn’t lift a glass of water.

Half an hour before the funeral, her half-brother, Jack, sat awkwardly near the front of the church with his wife and five-year-old son. Six years her senior, he was the product of her father’s first marriage; his mother (who he resembled) had passed away when he was two, and Audrey Dashwood had raised him as her own son.

Marianne had once described Jack as the iceberg lettuce of people. Jack was just a bland person. He was of average height and weight. His hair was a mousy brown, and his eyes were a bland brown. His wife who somehow happened to be Ed’s older sister was beautiful but in a nondescript way; you’d see Anna and forget about her ten minutes later. Either way, both Jack and Anna had spent much of the past two weeks acting like his father had gone into hospice and passed away right when they were scheduled to take their annual vacation to Cape Cod to personally inconvenience them. Nora and Marianne were both sick of Jack and Anna petulantly sulking around the Dashwood family home.

Marianne might not have been sulking, but she didn’t seem to have much control over her emotions. She’d been sniffling around the house for the past four days, mumbling and ranting by degrees about being fatherless. Nora had practically had to dress her that morning, and she had guided her to the car and into the church. She was huddled in a pew next to her mother with bunches of partially used tissues in her hands.

Jamie, James as he’d announced that morning he wanted to be called, was sitting on the other side of Marianne trying to hold her hand. He was eighteen. He’d just finished high school. He was trying so hard to be strong. If Jack was iceberg lettuce, James was a brick. He was sturdy and dependable when you needed him. He needed a good support system around him, but he wouldn’t let you down. Not for the first time in the past year, Nora was grateful for the way that her friends, especially Will, George, and Elsa, had stepped up to fill the various gaps in her little brother’s life.

* * *

For herself, Nora stood in the back of the church greeting people as they arrived. She thought she was doing a pretty good job of holding it together as she greeted her dad’s friends and former employees. She got a bit misty-eyed as she accepted a kiss on the cheek from Samuel Gardiner who had the previous fall succeeded her father as headmaster of the Ford Academy. But she held it together fairly well until Erik Wentworth, Annie Eliot, and Elsa Bennet walked in.

Erik was, as far as she knew, fourteen inches taller than her, and she stood on her toes to hug him. He kissed her cheek quickly. “I’m so sorry, Nora. I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks, Erik,” she whispered before pulling away from him.

He squeezed her hands in his large ones firmly before turning to his companions. “I’m going to find a seat.”

“Get a whole pew,” Elsa replied as she wrapped her arms around her oldest friend. “The three amigos were pulling in behind us.”

He nodded and walked to give his regards to the rest of Nora’s family before finding a pew.

Nora looked at Elsa. “Thanks for being here.”

“Of course, where else would I be?”

“And thanks for closing the KW for the day. It means a lot to us.”

Elsa shrugged as she pressed her cheek against Nora’s. “You’re family. Your dad was family.”

Nora leaned against her friend, and Annie wrapped an arm around her. “We’re here for you. We love you, Nora.”

“I love you guys. I really do, but I need to…”

“Yep,” Elsa replied. “We got it. We’ll go help Erik guard our pew.”

Nora hugged each of them individually again before turning to greet Eli Barnes, the physics teacher at the Ford Academy. After Eli walked away, she looked up to see George, Will, and Ed walking towards her. “You three all dressed up in suits should be illegal.”

Will snorted. “I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to objectify your friends at your dad’s funeral.”

After more than a decade of friendship with the tall slender man in front of her, Nora had come to find the fact that Will had no comprehension of his own good looks utterly delightful. Nora looked into his blue eyes and shrugged. “It’s my dad’s funeral. I’m pretty sure that I can objectify you if I want.”

“Nora-Dora,” he sighed wrapping his arms around her.

“You don’t have to say anything, Will.”

He pressed his lips quickly to the top of her head. “People are going to say a lot of well-intentioned things, Nora. I’m just going to tell you that when you need someone to scream at we have beer in the fridge and Ed is a good listener. We also know where you can buy tequila.”

She snorted and pressed her head to his solid chest. “Never change, William.”

“He can’t,” a deep voice said in her ear as she was passed from one cousin to the other. “Will is completely incapable of change.”

“Edward,” Will’s voice had a thick warning tone.

“Relax. I’m behaving.”

“Then I’ll leave you to that.”

“Nora Jane,” Ed said as he held her tight to his chest.

“My best friend.”

“We really do have beer in the fridge, and we can steal wine from the girls. And we’re always here whatever you need.”

“Ed, Edward…you’re wonderful.”

He ran a hand through his tousled black curls. “What are friends for, Nora?”

She took a deep breath as he hugged her firmly again. “I’m going to need you guys a lot going forward.”

“And we’ll be there,” he told her smoothly. He rubbed her upper arms and pursed his lips. “We’ll be here.”

She had tears in her eyes when she turned to George. She opened her mouth to speak, to thank him for coming, but she couldn’t find what she wanted to say. Tears began to slide down her cheeks, and blinking wasn’t holding them back. George’s arms were around her. She felt a faint twinge of guilt that her tears would smear her makeup on his crisp white shirt, but that quickly faded as she melted into his solid chest. For a moment or two she just listened to his heartbeat and felt his hands on her back. Of course George Knightley, the perpetual older brother, would be the one who held her when she lost it. Calm, dependable George Knightley with his solid muscles and stable emotions, he was always the one to help his friends through rough moments.

After a minute or so, Nora took a deep breath and stepped slightly back. George’s grip on her relaxed, but he didn’t fully release her. “You’re alright, Nora.”

She sniffed. “Thanks for helping-for being there for…”

He smiled and handed her a tissue from his pocket. “You got it.”

She wiped her eyes and sniffed again. “I’m sorry about your shirt.”

He looked down and adjusted his suit coat. “No worries, Nora; it’ll all come out in the wash. I should let you go. Your brother is coming.”

She kissed his bearded cheek and smiled. “Thanks again, George.”

“My pleasure,” he replied before walking to join their other friends in a pew.

“That was George Knightley, right?” Jack queried as he joined her.

She nodded.

“Is he still single?”

“I don’t...” Five minutes before her father’s funeral wasn’t the time or place to try to dissect George’s relationship with Emma for Jack.

“You should go after him, Nora. He’d be a good match for you.”

“Thanks, Jack. I’ll think about it.”

He looked like he might say something more, but Emma and Henry Woodhouse walked in and saved Nora from anymore of her brother’s misguided matchmaking.

* * *

Henry Woodhouse warbled about how tragic it was to watch one’s friends go before oneself, and Nora didn’t now how to reply. She was saved from trying to say anything by his sudden decision that he needed to go speak to her mother. After he walked away, Emma hugged Nora. “I’m sorry. I’d say more, but I need to go wrangle him. We will talk later. I promise.”

Nora squeezed Emma’s shoulders. “I get it. Go manage Henry.”

A few of her father’s friends replaced Emma, and Nora was greatly relieved when they left and Chris Brandon took their place. “Hey,” she said flatly.

“Hey,” he replied gently “How are you holding up?”

“Well, I cried all over George earlier. I’m pretty sure that he’s never going to get my mascara off his shirt.”

“Is that a warning? Or am I safe to hug you?”

She smiled faintly. “I think that you’re safe. I don’t think that there’s any mascara left on these lashes.”

“Then come here, friend,” he said reaching out and pulling her into a tight hug. “You’re going to be okay. You’ve got some great friends. Ed is a good listener. So are Elsa and Annie. There’s wine in the girls’ fridge. George has whisky. Some of us are good at hugging people.”

“You’re great, Chris,” Nora told him briefly resting her head against his chest. “You really are. But you should find your seat. It looks like things are about to get going.”

He squeezed both of her hands. “We’re here when you need us. And we love you, Nora-dora.”

* * *

The funeral went as well as could be expected. Fr. Mark gave a good homily. Samuel Gardiner gave a beautiful eulogy talking about how Jim, his mentor, had been both a brilliant friend and teacher but also an exceptional husband and father.

The luncheon, which was held in the church hall, was packed. Emma managed to secure a table for ten as soon as she arrived. Elsa looked at it as she set her purse on the table. “No room for your dad?”

“Henry wants to sit with your parents and others who will, and I quote, ‘understand what this event has made me feel.’”

“I’m not sure that my mom would say she understands what your dad feels today, but she’ll let Henry be Henry.”

Emma smiled at Elsa. “Your mom is surprisingly good at listening to my dad talk.”

“I think that she knows that it’s good for him.”

* * *

That evening Nora went into Marianne’s room. “Do you want to hear something that will make you smile?”

Marianne looked up from her phone. “Grant didn’t come.”

“Did he tell you why?”

She shrugged. “He says that he’s not built for big emotional moments, and he thought it would be better if he wasn’t there.”

Nora sat down on the edge of her sister’s bed. “Oh Mare, I’m so sorry.”

“Do you still want to try to make me smile?”

“I think you’ll like this at least a little,” Nora offered.

Marianne sat up a bit. “What?”

“Jack told me that I should go after George because he’d be a good match for me.”

“George?” the younger sister repeated.

“George.”

“George as in our George? Emma’s George? George Knightley?”

Nora nodded. “The one and only.”

Marianne snorted before laughing outright. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“You and George? Nora Dashwood and George Knightley? Oh dear lord…”

“Yeah…”

“Nora, I’m sorry. I don’t want to…”

“No, you’re fine,” Nora replied with a chuckle. “It’s a bad idea.”

“I mean…for one thing, there’s Emma.”

“Yeah.”

“And for you, there’s Ed.”

Nora rolled her eyes. “He’s not available right now.”

“He’s single.”

“But not available.”

“Nora,” Marianne began.

But her older sister shook her head. “No, I’m not going down that path.”

“You have to own your feelings.”

Nora stood up. “And what good will that do me?”

“You have to be honest with yourself. You love Ed.”

“And he’s not available to anyone right now, so it doesn’t really matter how I do or don’t feel about him.”

“I saw him with you this morning.”

“I’m his friend, Marianne. He’s one of my best friends. Right now, that’s all that he can handle.”

“But don’t you want more?”

“You can’t ask more of an unavailable man.”

“But your heart, Nora!”

She pressed her lips together firmly. “My heart can bear this.”

“Nora!”

“I’m not discussing this anymore. We’ve been over it a dozen times.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m going home, Marianne. I have to go to work in the morning.”

“Why do you do this to yourself?”

“We’ve been over this before. I’m handling it as best I can,” she said before walking out of the room.

“Why can’t you accept your own feelings?” Marianne yelled after her before returning to texting Grant.

* * *

As she walked out to her car, Nora sent a text to Elsa and Will. “I need whiskey and good friends.”

Elsa replied first. “Family too much?”

“I’ll be at Elsa’s with whiskey,” came from Will.

“I’ll explain when I get there.”

“I don’t know where Ed is.”

She shook her head before she replied to that. “That’s okay.”

* * *

Nora made her way to Elsa and Annie’s apartment. She parked behind the building next to Elsa’s dark blue SUV and noted that neither Will’s black sedan nor Annie’s gray hatchback were here. She rang the doorbell at the bottom of the stairs and waited for Elsa to let her in the back door of the building. Then she hurried up the stairs to the apartment door, which opened almost instantly to reveal Elsa in black gym shorts and a long-sleeved shirt with a cat in her arms and a wooden spoon in her mouth.

Nora, still wearing the black sheath dress she wore to the funeral, stepped into the kitchen and shut the door. “You can put Lord Peter down.”

Elsa snorted as she let the large black cat jump out of her arms. After taking the spoon out of her mouth, she hugged her friend. “I sent Will to get whiskey, and I’m baking a berry tart.”

“You had to send Will _Darcy_ out to get whiskey?”

“Well, he was already here, and we’re out of whiskey at the moment, so...”

“Did he go home to get it?”

Elsa shrugged. “He just told me that I was out and he was going to get some. He might have gone home. He may have gone to Weston’s or The Corner Store.”

Nora moved further into the kitchen. “I should give him my dad’s whiskey collection-him or George. They’d both like it, and he’d want it to know that it was well loved.”

Elsa returned to her tart making as she said, “Give it to George. He knew your dad better.”

Nora nodded. “That’s a good point. My dad would have liked that especially after everything that George did for Jamie.”

“And everything that’s passed between your dad and George over the years,” Elsa added.

“True,” Nora replied softly before changing the subject. “Where is Annie? I was kind of hoping that she’d be here too. You didn’t have to kick her out just because I only texted you and Will.”

“Oh I didn’t. The boys needed her.” The boys referred to Erik Wentworth and Chris Brandon who were working together to open a restaurant across the street from the Knit Wit.

“For what?”

“Pesto, I think,” she replied. “I’m supposed to teach them the secret to risotto next week.”

“And by them, you mean Erik?” Erik Wentworth was a naturally gifted cook. Chris Brandon had found his comfort zone behind the bar and chose not to venture outside of it.

“I’m sure that Chris can learn to make risotto. Risotto isn’t that hard. I taught him to make zucchini bread once.”

Nora snorted. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how that story goes.”

“Spoilsport,” Elsa sighed.

Before Nora could do anything more than roll her eyes, the door opened, and Will joined them. “Ladies, I come bearing whiskey.”

“And the tart is in the oven.”

“Set the timer, and I’ll pour the whiskey. Nora, how are you?”

Nora leaned against the counter and sighed. “Can I not answer that? I just don’t know the answer right now.”

“Fair enough.”

“Before we get into my text, can I get changed? I’ve been wearing this dress all day and I’m tired and…”

“Not a problem,” Elsa interrupted. “Want a pair of shorts and a shirt?”

“Yeah.”

“Come with me.”

* * *

When Nora returned to the living room a few minutes later, she threw her dress by her purse before flopping on a chair in the living room. Will Darcy had poured three glasses of whiskey neat and set them on the coffee table. Before picking up her glass, she smiled. “Will, you are an extraordinary man, and I hope Elsa understands how lucky she is to have you.”

Elsa looked up from her knitting. “Elsa knows enough.”

Will wrapped an arm around his girlfriend. “Elsa doesn’t like dating an accountant during tax season.”

“We started dating in December. Then from January to April, you were basically married to your job.”

“Well, you were married to your dissertation.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “The first three or four months of our relationship don’t really count as dating. We were basically just really good friends until tax season ended and I was done defending my dissertation.”

“And we’re completely off-topic,” Will remarked. “So, Nora, you asked for good whiskey and good friends. I’d like to think that you have both at the moment.”

She smiled slightly and took a sip of whiskey.

“So, what can we do for you?”

Nora leaned back into the chair. “My family, God, I don’t know where to begin with them. I know that this is horrible especially today of all days, but I can’t do this anymore.”

“What happened?” Elsa asked as she set her knitting down and leaned back against Will.

“My brother told me to make a play for George. Right before the funeral, he came up to me and told me that he thought that I should make a play for George because George would be good for me. And I didn’t know what to say because I wasn’t about to tell him that George is secretly dating Emma.”

“Worst kept secret ever,” Elsa muttered.

“True,” Nora replied. “Anyway, my sister is heartbroken because Grant didn’t come today. But honestly that didn’t surprise me. And then she gave me a lecture about getting in touch with my feelings because I haven’t made a play for Ed yet.”

“Ed hasn’t even been single for three months yet.” Will’s voice was flat and slightly bitter. “And he was with Lucy on and off for the better part of a decade. You’ve literally never known him when he was yo-yoing with her. He’s nowhere near ready to think about dating someone else.”

“And I know all of that!” Nora sighed and leaned back further into the well-cushioned chair. “I just don’t get my family.”

“Today more than normal?” Elsa queried.

“I know that this is hard for everyone, but I was the one who was closest to him. I’m the one who was the most like him.”

“Truth.”

“So why am I the family therapist? Why is my family acting like I’m fine? Are you really supposed to give your sister relationship advice the day that you bury your dad?” Nora paused for breath and whiskey. “I know that I’m NOT Marianne. I don’t do big emotional shows. I’m me. I share what I need to, but I keep most of it to myself. I don’t share most of what I’m thinking or feeling with most people. I save it for people who will really listen.”

“Don’t worry,” Elsa told her. “Will and I know that.”

“I tell you two things that I can’t tell my own sister.” Although she had never said it aloud, Nora was thrilled Will and Elsa were dating. She’d known Elsa since infancy and had long considered the spunky brunette to be one of her best friends. She met Will in college through their mutual friend, George Knightley, and had long considered him to be one of her closest confidantes. She’d talked about each of them with the other over the decade that had passed between meeting Will during her freshman and his junior years of college and his arrival in Highbury. When they met, became friends, and started dating, it had felt to Nora like the culmination of something. She hadn’t lost anything to their relationship but rather found that they were happy to share their time as a couple with her.

“To be a jerk, if you told your sister half of the things that you tell us, they’d end up on Instagram,” Will remarked.

“Whereas with us, only a fifth of it makes it to the ‘gram,” Elsa added without lifting her eyes from the color work sweater she was knitting.

Nora ignored Elsa. “Will Darcy, can I just tell you that I love when you preface things by saying ‘to be a jerk’?”

He smiled at her. “My mother raised me to be a gentleman.”

“And a gentleman tells people that he’s going to be a jerk?”

“I’m warning you,” he replied. “I’ll be a jerk, but I’m nice enough to warn you before I do that. And I’ll have you remember, Nora, that I wasn’t always that nice.”

“Yeah, last September he told some girl that her café wasn’t as good as Starbucks,” Elsa said flatly.

“I didn’t say it TO her,” the man in question sighed. “I said it to George. And I didn’t realize that she had heard me.”

“Francis William, I had spent years talking my best friend Elsa Bennet up to you.”

“I’m not a good listener.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Or maybe I didn’t connect your Elsa with George’s Elsa.”

“I’ll almost buy that except for the fact that Elsa is not a very common name.”

Elsa sighed. “We didn’t start on the best foot. Then you asked me out. Then tax season and my dissertation happened.”

“But then April ended,” Nora stated. “And I’m happy with what May brought.”

“May was a good month for us,” Will agreed.

“It was, but back to Nora,” Elsa said.

“Yes, back to Nora, what can we do for you?”

Nora sighed. “Be less frustrating than my family?”

Will raised his glass of whiskey. “How are we doing so far?”

She grinned. “Well, no one in my family has given me whiskey this week.”

“Your dad would disapprove,” Elsa replied.

Nora shrugged and leaned her head back. “I just want to be still and not have to solve anyone else’s problems.”

“How do you feel about watching mindless movies?” Elsa offered.

“Define mindless.”

“ _Robin Hood_?” she offered after a moment’s thought. “I’m in the mood for a singing fox.”

“You got it,” Elsa said as she set her knitting aside and hopped over the back of the couch to get the movie and put it in the DVD player.

Will held up her phone. “Someone is texting you.”

She grabbed it as she settled herself back on the couch. “It’s Annie. The boys have learned to make three kind of pesto, and she wants to know if they can come over here.”

“Are they bringing the pesto?” Nora asked slightly confused.

“I think they were going to put it in Chris’s freezer,” Elsa said.

“Yeah, we have a tart in the oven,” Will pointed out. “Who needs pesto when you have a berry tart in the oven?”

“But more to the point,” Elsa said. “Nora, do you mind if they come over, or would you prefer if it was just the three of us?”

“It’s Annie, Chris, and Erik?”

“Yerp.”

“Just the three of them?” Nora queried.

“Yerp.”

“If you want Ed, I can text him,” Will offered. “He’s probably just watching baseball.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I can spend time with him another time. You two and Erik, Chris, and Annie are more than enough balm for my soul.”

* * *

Chris, Annie, and Erik joined them. They all drank whiskey and ate berry tart. They watched _Robin Hood_. And curled on the couch between Elsa and Annie, Nora felt, if nothing else, a bit more peaceful. She had some pretty great friends. It didn’t make up for everything. Her sorrow and grief weren’t immediately healed. Her dad was gone, and nothing could change that. But she wasn’t alone, and she knew it well. She began to relax. This group of people and her other close friends who were absent would carry her through. She would survive this.

* * *


End file.
